Saturday, July 26, 2014

French lawyer lodges a complaint with the ICC against Israel: Inadmissible

It was reported that a French lawyer lodged a complaint with the International Criminal Court against Israel. This is interesting yet inadmissible.

As a matter of fact, there are different reasons why the ICC would decline to “examine the complaint”. However, let’s mention only three of them.

Firstly, unlike national courts, the ICC - unfortunately - doesn’t receive complaints from individuals. Secondly, the lawyer was acting “on behalf of the Palestinian Minister of Justice”. So it was the Minister’s initiative, and not the Government’s. Thirdly, any acceptance of the ICC’s jurisdiction, or referral to the ICC, must be signed by the President, which - obviously - wasn’t the case.